Free Republic

This is insanity, driving local public outrage and vows to avoid these establishments: high-end restaurants in Chicago are still blaming COVID social distancing polices for a strictly enforced policy of a $100 minimum for each person to dine. “A Chicago man was outraged when he was faced with a minimum payment to eat at a restaurant, and he thinks the rule should go away now that the city is opening back up,” a local CBS affiliate reports. But the rule isn’t going away, many restaurants say while claiming the continued requirement is toward ensuring operations are in line with COVID-related...

<p>This Fourth of July holiday we might pause for a moment from our festivities to ask how we collectively lost our minds over the last 15 months—and are we yet regaining any semblance of our sanity?</p><p>A pandemic caused by the leak of a Chinese-engineered virus and its coverup was cause enough for nationwide madness. But the spread of COVID–19 was followed by a nationalized and often politicized “flatten-the-curve” quarantine that soon ensured a stir-crazy nation. Tens of millions saw no people, and heard nothing human other than what was fed to them through television and computers. No wonder they grew paranoid, conspiratorial, and angry, and soon forgot the therapeutic nature of personal interaction and the shared humanity of being in the physical presence of others.</p>

Scorching temperatures return to the West, persisting through mid-week, and reappear this weekend as multiple heat waves develop. Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, and Nevada, are still grappling with record-setting heat and diminishing water supplies from last month’s heat wave. The next round of daytime highs may climb into the 90s and or triple digits. There’s no end in sight to the hellacious climate. “Excessive and oppressive heat across the Northwest will continue through at least the first half of the week where daytime highs will climb well into the 90s and low 100s,” the Weather Prediction Center (WPC) wrote. “Daily...